On Jennifer Leeper’s ‘Border Run and Other Stories’

Leeper’s collection ranges from flash pieces to full short stories, but each presents seemingly ordinary people in extraordinary situations.

Jennifer Leeper
Fiction
122 pages
5.5” x 8.5”
Perfectbound Trade Paperback
Also available in eBook formats
Review Format: eBook PDF
ISBN 978–1941295298
First Edition
Barking Rain Press
Vancouver, Washington, USA
Available HERE
$12.95

Jennifer Lepeer’s Border Run and Other Stories shakes up contemporary fiction by drawing on elements of magical realism and roman noir to portray characters who suffer from and embrace an array of human emotions and experiences.

The 14 pieces in the collection range from flash pieces to full short stories, but each stands on its own as a powerful example of contemporary literature, presenting seemingly ordinary people in extraordinary situations.

The characters are beautifully flawed, their dialogue revelatory of their developed personas and tensions between each other. Whether it is two sisters hiking a mountain together who find themselves at an impasse in their relationship or Simon in “The Vortex,” who is so preoccupied with the desire to resign from his job that it gives him nightmares and panic attacks, the lives are significant, the characters anything but trivial.

In the title story, “Border Run,” a runner is gunned down during an ultramarathon through the Mojave Desert, her notable shoes stolen off her feet. While the suspect is quickly convicted, the real murderer and his motives are far more complex than race-winning sneakers.

“Last Pose” brings together conflicting groups — those who want to revitalize a block and those who want to preserve it, even though it had been abandoned by residents long ago:

“The cluster of grayed buildings appear to suffer from a kind of architectural leprosy. […] No one had called this cluster home for more than sixty years.”

(p. 59).

Lepeer’s writing is deft and deliberate, the setting always playing an integral role in the layered conflicts. Perhaps her greatest strength in each story is the riveting opening sentences, particularly in “Ghost Town”:

“The town was dying, thought the cowboy, but it was his town. He wouldn’t dishonor it by abandoning what remained.”

(p. 73).

Border Run and Other Stories is a collection of human experiences that reverberate and shudder with poetic energy.